Choosing a path

I have lost my way a bit in terms of how to keep moving forward on this draft. I am struggling with which strategy to take when deciding what to work on next. Should I work on the comments I've received from others (including my advisor)? Should I finish adding all the things into the draft that I need in there (e.g., finish commenting on my results)? Should I work on the easiest or hardest things first? It's hard to know how to move forward when you have so many options about how to proceed.

Maybe I should use the strategy I use at work: Identify what you absolutely need to get done for the meeting (e.g., were you asked to prepare and bring information on a specific topic?). Focus on answering those items first. Then if you have time, go back and add additional information that YOU want to add in. I know that I wanted to try out some non-linear transformations on my data and also go back to the original studies to confirm that I have coded and analyzed everything correctly, but those items might not even affect my paper at all. If I do the research on the non-linear transformations and redo my analysis and find that no big changes were made in my significant findings, then a reader has really nothing new to look at. In other words, I believe I should keep focusing on changing the items with the biggest impact on showing that I am progressing forward. The first few items I can think of are:

• Create tables that report the results of my regression analyses
• Finish summarizing my results in the discussion. 

Identify anything that is still MISSING from the paper and add it in. IGNORE anything that is already in the paper but might not be correct or might be not well written -- come back to these things. In other words, keep continuing to add in all the things that I know must be ADDED in to the paper. Once that is finished, go back and fix things that need major revisions (i.e.,  my suggestions for future research section might not have the best points, but I should only work on revising that once I finish ADDING in anything that is still truly missing).

I've got a call set up with my advisor tomorrow to discuss next steps and questions. I need to come up with a list of questions for him to discuss. It's making me really nervous that we'll have to talk -- we haven't spoken in a while. My concern is that I need to get on good terms with him so that he thinks I'm progressing and will be ready for the meeting. As long as I can produce a pretty complete and good draft by the end of August, I think I should be able to convince him of that. That would mean I have a nearly complete draft ready a month before the meeting. I will then have 1-2 more weeks to go back and fix things that I wanted to check up on before finalizing things.

I feel slightly less bad today, physically. Mentally is a different story! I'm nervous about getting this draft to a good place for my advisor because it means answering and researching a lot of hard questions before 8 AM tomorrow. What I keep telling myself is that I don't need to send him something perfect, but I do need to send him something that has CHANGED a lot since he last saw it. I just need to show a lot of forward progress, not perfection in every little detail. For example, once I pop out the regression results tables and show him that I've done all the work of creating the tables, it will appear to be a relatively minor change at that point if I have to go back and change a detail in the tables. My goal is to have all of the major questions answered and a complete draft sent to him by the end of August. I hope that will be enough for him to think that I'm getting there. I'm also having a hard time getting motivated to work on this all day every day because I'm exhausted. I don't have time for a mini-vacation right now, although I need one. So the best option is to continue to give myself free time at nights as a break.

I've been having a lot of flashbacks to last year with B. Gettysburg, Brookside Gardens, visiting Baltimore, hanging out with his family, museums at the National Mall, Kinetic Sculpture Race, Canada trip, whale watching, climbing mountains, hot air balloon ride in Oregon, New York City, Scottish Highland Games, local bar trivia nights, movie nights, playing with his dog, our garden, Alexandria lectures about the Civil War, dog parks, and just a whole lot of stuff that we did. I continue to be sad when I think about those things because they remind me of him. I don't have time to process that part of my life right now and my relationship decision that I need to make soon, but it's in my mind. The decision is going to be very hard either way, but I just can't think about it right now. I need to look down at my feet and just keep walking for the time being. I need to get this draft #3 finished before I start thinking about the future of my heart.